Dangerous Ages eBook

CHAPTER XIV

YOUTH TO YOUTH

1

Kay was home for the Christmas vacation. He was
full, not so much of Cambridge, as of schemes for
establishing a co-operative press next year.
He was learning printing and binding, and wanted Gerda
to learn too.

“Because, if you’re really not going to
marry Barry, and if Barry sticks to not having you
without, you’ll be rather at a loose end, won’t
you, and you may as well come and help us with the
press.... But of course, you know,” Kay
added absently, his thoughts still on the press, “I
should advise you to give up on that point.”

“Give up, Kay? Marry, do you mean?”

“Yes.... It doesn’t seem to me to
be a point worth making a fuss about. Of course
I agree with you in theory—­I always have.
But I’ve come to think lately that it’s
not a point of much importance. And perfectly
sensible people are doing it all the time. You
know Jimmy Kenrick and Susan Mallow have done it?
They used to say they wouldn’t, but they have.
The fact is, people do do it, whatever they
say about it beforehand. And though in theory
it’s absurd, it seems often to work out pretty
well in actual life. Personally I should make
no bones about it, if I wanted a girl and she wanted
marriage. Of course a girl can always go on being
called by her own name if she likes. That has
points.”

“Of course one could do that,” Gerda pondered.

“It’s a sound plan in some ways.
It saves trouble and explanation to go on with the
name you’ve published your things under before
marriage.... By the way, what about your poems,
Gerda? They’ll be about ready by the time
we get our press going, won’t they? We can
afford to have some slight stuff of that sort if we
get hold of a few really good things to start with,
to make our name.”

Gerda’s thoughts were not on her poems, nor
on Kay’s press, but on his advice about matrimony.
For the first time she wavered. If Kay thought
that.... It set the business in a new light.
And of course other people were doing it; sound
people, the people who talked the same language and
belonged to the same set as one’s self.

Kay had spoken. It was the careless, authentic
voice of youth speaking to youth. It was a trumpet
blast making a breach in the walls against which the
batteries of middle age had thundered in vain.
Gerda told herself that she must look further into
this, think it over again, talk it over with other
people of the age to know what was right. If it
could be managed with honour, she would find it a
great relief to give up on this point. For Barry
was so firm; he would never give up; and, after all,
one of them must, if it could be done with a clear
conscience.

2

Ten days later Gerda said to Barry, “I’ve
been thinking it over again, Barry, and I’ve
decided that perhaps it will be all right for us to
get married after all.”